Thursday, December 4, 2014

While I am working on old projects trying to finish them up, I plan what I am going to work on during a new year as well. One of the rug on my list that I dream to start and finish next year is a reproduction of an antique Spanish Savonnerie that I charted.

Isn't it gorgeous!?! This rug will make any room, any miniature setting alive!

If you would like to join me in this FUN, you can purchase the pattern or a partial kit at my Etsy store

Monday, November 17, 2014

How to find out where selvage was if you have a cut piece of silk gauze without selvages?

For example, I have this piece of 35 count silk gauze. Before to mountain on the frame I need to figure out where selvage was and mark it.

There are 2 terms that are used when we talk about a woven canvas/fabric: warp and weft. Warp is the tightly stretched lengthwise core of canvas and weft is woven between the warp threads. Since warp threads are coming lengthwise out of selvage our task is to identify where is warp and weft are on this piece of 35 count silk gauze.

If the piece of silk gauze is not marked or has no selvage, pull one thread from the vertical side and one from the horizontal side.

Compare them. One thread will be crinkly and split in 2,

horizontal side

and another thread will be smooth:

vertical side

The warp threads are treated to withstand the tension in weaving. Weft thread is not.

The smooth one is warp and this is where the selvage was.

It means, when my piece of silk gauze is ready to be worked on, I will frame it this way.

Now, if you want, you can take a piece of silk gauze with selvage and repeat this experiment again to see what I mean.

Somebody might not like me bringing too much of red color in the field of the rug. First, I yelled at myself too, but then I started liking it more, probably adjusted. Frankly speaking, the red color I used for the border was over and, since our the only one local needlework store in the city was closed last summer, I was forced to buy silk floss on-line. I ordered the same number, the same name. However, it arrived brighter than I used to have.

I planned to finish this rug last month. Hopefully, I will have more time to finish it in November, or let's say this year. I have already stitched 2014 on the rug - the year it has to be finished.

Monday, October 27, 2014

It is almost the end of the month and my Kazak rug is almost finished too, just a little bit left. Here is a working progress on it.
Just a little reminder: 49 count silk gauze, Gloriana silk floss, 6,5" x 8,5".

Sunday, October 26, 2014

I've been attempting to try needle felting for a long time now. Finally after reading some instructions I found on-line and watching some videos on youtube.com I dived into a Needle Felting project - this cat. My little assistant Monica helps me to display my first needle felted creature.

The cat is 4" tall. First, I made a base for shaping from wool.

It was such a fun to shape the forms and the face. I tried to do my best, I never sculptured the wool.

After I was satisfied with how firm and shaped the body of the cat was, I started covering it with different color of the wool.

Then I added a tail

eyes, nose, whiskers, mouth

and here is the cat done. It took me 8 hours of making my first needle felted toy.

One of them, dollhouse miniature child mannequin kit gave me a lot of troubles in past. May be Lynne and Bernard McQueenie took too realistic picture of a miniature child mannequin, but funny story is that people who purchase those child mannequin's kits think it is a real size mannequin. They pay, I ship, and then I receive a message from them asking if it is possible to return it back. In a word, I had hard time to sell that particular kit. Finally, giving up on an idea to sell them, I made a decision to put them together and dress.

It was time I used and loved to knit in real size. I thought it would be great to try knitting in miniature.

Thursday, October 9, 2014

Even though I have never heard Birgit's (http://biwubaer.blogspot.com/) voice in real life, I still can hear it in my head:

"I like filling the space between the patterns... I like filling the space between the patterns..."

These magic mantra and all your support allowed me to put last stitch on the background of a Dollhouse Miniature rug "Snow In Albuquerque" today in the morning.

So far, it took me 9 days to finish this little project. I never count countless hours I spent on my work, because due to my inconsistency I can't sit too long enough and sometimes the process of stitching consists of a couple of minutes between the housework, homeschooling my daughter, gardening, etc...

Actually, there is nothing wrong with filling up the background. There are advantages here too:

1. you work with one solid color that allows to keep your working area cleaner than if you use multiple colors;

2. you don't count;

3. you don't use a chart;

4. you even can watch TV and talk between the stitches.

Here is the rug:

I must say, I am not happy with off-white color I chose.
It doesn't allow to see the distinct difference between the border and the field of the rug.
Snow in Albuquerque seems to be dirty, lol...

I should picked up a bright white color, exactly how first snow looks like and how I remember it.

Do you understand what it means?

I might want to re-stitch it. At least I have time to think about it.

For now, this little friend will be hanging on a blocking board for a couple of weeks. In meanwhile, I am planning to start working on my long last project - dollhouse miniature Kazak rug.

The Gloriana silk floss arrived and my goal is to finish the rug at the end of October.

Sunday, October 5, 2014

Day 3 and 4. The stitching process of Dollhouse Miniature Petit Point Rug "Snow In Albuquerque" is progressing. I finished the border, the medallion and started working on the corners. Couple more days and the rug will be finished!

I have already a new rug in mind to start stitching. So many new patterns, so little time...

Friday, October 3, 2014

While I am waiting when my purchased silk floss will arrive, I decided not to waste time and start working on my new rug. It is a small project that measures approx. 3 1/2" x 4 1/2". I use 40 count silk gauze and DMC floss. I called it "Snow in Albuquerque".

Wednesday, October 1, 2014

When an idea of stitching a miniature Kazak rug popped up in my head, the main goal was to concentrate on the border and make it as detailed as possible, and leave the center of the rug plain, actually, fill it up with an over dyed silk floss imitating an abrash that you can see in antique rugs. When I finished working on the border of the Kazak rug and reached the point of moving onto the center, a reasonable question raised in my head: Do I really want to spend/waste time monotonously filling up the field of the rug that measures almost 4" x 6"? No. NO! So, I came up with the design for the middle of the rug and started working on it. Here is a picture of stitching progress:

After a couple of days of working on it I realized I was running out of 2 colors. Our only one local needlework store was closed last year (it hurts me a lot), so I used E-bay to purchase Gloriana silk floss to finish my rug. While I am waiting for the silk floss to arrive, I decided to work on another project, but later about it...

Friday, August 8, 2014

As you know from my previous post, this Fall, September 13-14, I am planning to attend the Portland Miniature Show as a dealer first time.

I am also planning to give a workshop that is called "Pull Out a Stool..." I initiated this workshop mainly for the beginners who has never tried needlework in miniature, has a lot of questions and doesn't know where to find the answers.

This class is for those who would like to learn magnificent world of petit pointing in miniature. While working on stitching a little rose for a dollhouse footstool, students will learn working with silk gauze and silk thread as well as learn and practice the stitches that are used in miniature petit pointing.

Tips on how to make the back side of your work neat will be shared, and it will be shown how with different count of silk gauze and a little bit of imagination to use the same design for different projects in different scales. The dollhouse miniature footstool will be likely finished during the class.

Friday, July 18, 2014

Hi everyone! I haven't posted for a while. You know, busy summer! Busy and very very hot. We are having almost three weeks of unbearable heat. The worse part of it is our family hasn't been on vacation yet and me kind of stuck being at home right now. The reason is that we do a big reconstruction of our house we bought last year. However, life id beautiful and full of minis!

I wanted to let you know that a new Dollhouse Miniatures Needlework group has been opened on Facebook, and if you wish to join i, please, follow this link

Thursday, July 17, 2014

Hi everyone! I haven't posted for a while. You know, busy summer! Busy and very very hot. We are having almost three weeks of unbearable heat. The worse part of it is our family hasn't been on vacation yet and me kind of stuck being at home right now. The reason is that we do a big reconstruction of our house we bought last year. However, life id beautiful and full of minis!

I wanted to let you know that a new Dollhouse Miniatures Needlework group has been opened on Facebook, and if you wish to join i, please, follow this link

Monday, June 16, 2014

Today I want to show you the updates on 2 rugs that I am currently working on.

The first is a dollhouse miniature Kazak rug in 1/12th scale, 49 count. I finally finished last inner border. There are total of 8 borders in this rug.

When I started charting Kazak rug I planned to make the rug that it would be all about the borders: bright colors and simplicity in geometric design, this is what impresses me in Kazak rugs. I wanted to finish the field of the rug with 1 over dyed color, for instance, light green. However, now, I am thinking about to come up with design for the field, because it seems to be waist of time just to sit and monotonously fill the are up. What do you think?

Second rug the update on which I wanted to show is French Savonnerie. The medallion is in the process.

Now, back to work!

I hope, everyone has had a wonderful weekend and ready for a new week! Good luck!
Natalia